


If I Were To Lose You

by Serena_Rose



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Feelings Realization, Fire Squid, Hurt/Comfort, Jason is a hero, Manipulation, Mistaken Identity, No Established Cheleanor, Redemption, Revenge, Trust Issues, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27534112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serena_Rose/pseuds/Serena_Rose
Summary: There's a monster destroying the neighbourhood and Eleanor is determined to take it down. But hate can make you blind to the truth.(23/11 - edited with missing scene)
Relationships: Jianyu Li | Jason Mendoza & Eleanor Shellstrop, Jianyu Li | Jason Mendoza & Michael (The Good Place), Michael (The Good Place) & Eleanor Shellstrop, Michael (The Good Place)/Eleanor Shellstrop
Comments: 15
Kudos: 30





	If I Were To Lose You

**Author's Note:**

> Set in place of TTDS, the evening before the Pictionary game. Cecret and me were throwing around ideas about a King Kong scenario involving Michael and both decided to incorporate that into our fics, inspired as well by this prompt: https://whumpster-dumpster.tumblr.com/post/633269024897318912/stop-it-please-its-not-our-enemy-how-can#notes

Where else was she going to run to first?

Eleanor had been checking in on Brent in Tahani’s mansion, the self-centred deck-weasel having agreed to help tend to her garden in return for gaining some ‘Best Place’ points, when she’d been saved from his ‘helpful’ comments regarding if ‘gods’ like her could wear more make up, by an act of what seemed like actual divine intervention. Or, rather, the opposite, all things considered.

A massive explosion erupted from the direction of the town, shaking the very foundations of the neighbourhood and its surroundings, launching the birds off their branches into the pink, dusk sky. The three of them could smell the flames already, the acrid scent combining with something much fouler, like a sick combination of sulphur and…rotting fish? Very few smells in the world made Eleanor feel pissed of but the idea of someone wasting seafood definitely grinded her gears.

“What the blazes is that?!” Tahani exclaimed as herself, Eleanor and a curious Brent sprinted down the lawn, all of them unaware of how accurate her choice of exclamation was.

It was difficult to make out what was happening over the tall redwoods blocking their view. The screaming of the Janet-babies was carried to them via the wind.

At least…Eleanor hoped it was only the Janet-babies in danger.

“Oh crab.” Brent curses before touching Eleanor’s elbow, a little too tight, leaning in to whisper to her; “Hey, is this to do with me again? This place must really not be happy I’m not where I belong.”

“Uh…Yeah, that’s probably it! I wouldn’t worry about it!” There, she has an out. Eleanor turns to her hot bestie; “Tahani, babe, could you take Brent inside your house for a bit? I’m gonna go find Michael and Janet, sort whatever that is out.”

“You mean….that?” Tahani’s eyes are even wider than normal as they gaze at the treetops, her perfectly manicured finger pointing upward.

A large, red, triangle-shape engulfed in flames moves unsteadily across the skyline.

And the screams only get louder.

“Yes. That.” Eleanor clenches her teeth; “I’m sure that’s fine…Whatever it is. Just give us a few minutes, I promise, everything will be fine! I might send a couple of the others to bunker down with you guys, if that’s okay,” As in the only other ‘real’ humans in this place. Keep their lab bunnies safe.

Especially her favorite nerd bunny.

“Don’t go outside.” She says to them, mimicking her demon buddy’s words from long ago, before running off and letting Tahani lead Brent inside.

She attempts to call Janet along the way, only to get no response.

Now her heart pounds a little too fast. What she had hoped was just a glitch from Derek or perhaps Jason attempting to torture Chidi by throwing flaming tennis balls at gas canisters (Ultimate Fire Ball, it was a dope game when the mood was right) which had gone a little too far, now seemed to be far more worrying. Janet might not have been herself since her and Jason broke up but Eleanor has never known her not to respond to her call.

The closer she gets, the louder the screams begin to pierce her ears, along with the sound of crumbling brick and the smashing of wood. It’s not just one, contained explosion. The destruction is ongoing. Fork, she knows she suggested a sink hole the other night at her and Michael’s brainstorming but he thought the dude would confirm it with her first?

The answer becomes clear, and somehow all the more confusing, once Eleanor finds her way through the trees and sees the view in full.

A…No, wait, what the ever-loving fork is that?!

Something massive, almost twice the size of the clock tower and as wide as the town square itself, is rampaging through the buildings, a mass of tentacles encrusted with what look to be giant teeth thrashing against the structures and bringing them down as it tries to clear its own path. Is it an octopus?! No, stupid Eleanor, they have eight legs and this has…. definitely more than that. Far, far more than that. She’s pretty certain octopuses are not on fire either. Thousands of tiny boils line its long, awfully moist blood-orange body, each of them producing their own bursts of blue and red flames, some of them caught on the canapes and flowers in town, incinerating them without even making direct contact.

Eleanor feels her stomach drop. She closes her eyes for a moment and tries to….Nope. Steve Austin doesn’t come to fly her away. It’s definitely not a dream.

The town… _her_ town, damn it, is being torn down and set ablaze by the most horrifying thing she’s ever set eyes on. It makes Tahani’s lovesick Niednagel look downright cuddly in comparison.

Michael. She has to find Michael.

Thank god his office is as far on the other side of town, the Grecian style building still so far untouched by the giant, angry squid. Some of the Janet-babies are huddling, terrified, in the foyer, presumably programmed to respond that way in case the other humans became more freaked out at their calm during the apocalypse.

She pushes her way through the door to the waiting room and then into their office.

“Dude! Michael, where are you?!” Eleanor calls, her heart stilling when he doesn’t immediately respond.

Oh. Please don’t say the dingus went out to find her.

Or perhaps he went to make sure Chidi and the others were safely out the town? Maybe he’s already there, trying to talk down the squid? It could be an old school buddy of his, for all she knows. Don’t panic, Eleanor, keep it together.

“Michael!” She tries one last time, standing in the empty office.

No response.

She moves to the window, looking out to see the devastation continue to rise, the monster tossing over yet another frozen yoghurt shop, spilling its supplies out in a sizzling river of mild disappointment through the wreckage of the town. Was this the Bad Place again? Linda-slash-Chris’ rampage had seemed far too desperate and, on the nose, as it was. This…seemed far too easy, as if they had given up all attempts at being sneaky or subtly trying to sabotage them. This was an all-out assault.

And Eleanor has no idea what the fork she’s supposed to do.

“JANET!” she tries, one last time.

The bing that comes is far too muted and off-key.

“Hi…”

Eleanor turns to her side, seeing her friend leaning against the desk, her dress singed and her hair frazzled, scorch marks across her exhausted face. She’s never seen Janet in such a state before, struggling to keep her cheery smile, one of her eyelids wincing as a tiny flame on her eyebrow puts itself out.

“Holy shirt! Janet!” She moves forward, placing her palms on the not-robot’s arms; “What the fork happened? Where’s Michael?”

Another wince. Since when was it possible for Janet to feel pain?!

“I….It all happened so fast. I’m sorry, Eleanor, I’m gonna need a moment to get my head straight.” Janet puts a pair of fingers to her temple, a second then passes before she straightens up with a wider smile; “And I’m done! That’s better! Now, to start, Michael and I received news of a mysterious package arriving at the train station.”

“A mysterious package? Isn’t that code for ‘this is obviously a bomb’?!”

“Indeed, we were both suspicious, however I ran a scan and found no immediate signs of demonic threat,” Janet continues; “Michael then picked up the package. I suggested we bring it back here and wait for you to be present, but he insisted on handling it himself.”

Of course he forking did, the controlling idiot.

“He unwrapped it, starting with pulling the bow at the top and then removing the ribbon carefully, followed by peeling the tape-.”

“Yeah, skip to the last part, babe, it’s a little bit End Times out there!” Eleanor rushes her.

Janet nods; “And then there was the explosion as the Fire Squid appeared. The Bad Place must have covered the box in some sort of filter so I wouldn’t be able to detect the demon inside.”

Fire Squid? So that’s its name. Again, the Niednogel at least won points for creativity.

“And Michael? Is he still out there?” Eleanor’s feet are already moving back towards the door.

She’s not exactly sure what plans she has to help her centuries old pal battle and restrain a rampaging Fire Squid but she’s hardly going to leave him to try alone. They’re a team, this is their town and their experiment, they handle shirt like this together.

“No, the Squid ate him.” Janet informs.

Eleanor freezes.

She turns, trying hard not to laugh her ash off.

“W-what? Say that again?”

“The Fire Squid ate him.” Janet’s smile falls as she cringes; “Sorry, my perkiness probably didn’t relay the seriousness of that or the grief inside me. I’ll be more specific. Its tentacle picked him up, crushed him, grinded him with its teeth and then consumed him in its mouth before his skin suit could fully collapse.”

This time, Eleanor doesn’t laugh. What had sounded like a joke busting her gut becomes dread creeping up her spine. That sickening feeling returns to her stomach. She wishes Janet had not been quite as descriptive.

It can’t be right. He wouldn’t just…

She takes a breath; “Yeah but…H-He’s not dead. Is he? I mean…He can’t die, he said only Retirement can kill a demon and even that…”

“Retirement is merely a traditional method of immobilising a demons essence and forcing them into an eternity of suffering.” Janet tells her, rather grim; “There are other forms of execution, most of them now considered archaic, but it used to be that demons would…consume other demons, back before they formed a society around torturing mankind. A demon then absorbs their essence into their own body and that demon who has been eaten loses all sense of self and free will…All they’re left with is pain.”

Despite the ever-growing fire igniting on the rooftops out the window, Eleanor doesn’t remember ever feeling so forking cold in all her existence.

She tries to fly again. She pinches her wrist. She wishes as hard as she can for this not to be real.

“He’s not…Y-you’re not telling me Michael’s dead. You’re not telling me that, babe, no….”

“I agree, I have not said those exact words.” Janet affirms, slowly; “However…that is the gist of what I saw. I’m sorry, Eleanor, I really am…”

She retrieves something from behind her back, handing it towards Eleanor.

A pair of cracked glasses.

Eleanor’s mouth gapes open as her quivering fingers reach out to take them. Suddenly, this became all too solid, too much for even her to take. Her knees give way and she allows the desk to catch her as she stumbles backward, one hand flying up over her mouth as she smothers her own sob.

Janet blinks, her eyes watering; “I tried to stop him. I tried to summon something…Anything to help…But it’s like, as soon as that thing appeared, it sent some sort of signal out that disrupted my powers. I’ve got just enough to teleport and keep my Janet-babies working, running around in a panic…But I couldn’t save him. I can’t…I can’t stop it…”

Eleanor barely hears her over the blood rushing to her ear drums. She holds the glasses tight, trying to wrack her brain to think of a solution to this nightmare. Why the fork couldn’t Chidi be here?!

No. No, not Chidi. For once, she doesn’t want Chidi to be the one to help her know what to do.

She wants Michael. It’s all she wants in the world. She wants him back.

Now, damn it!

Folding the glasses delicately, she puts them away in her pocket, determined that they’ll be worn again soon.

“There’s gotta be a way to…We have to save him! Please, Janet, tell me you have some idea of how to get him out of that thing!”

“Well…That is the best suggestion I have, actually.” Janet tells her; “Demon digestive systems of a being that size are rather slow. Perhaps if you were to either get the fire squid to…expel Michael somehow…Either that, or open it up ourselves to free him.”

The resolution hardens in Eleanor’s eyes. Good. She has a fair reason for hurting that thing other than just pure vengeance.

“Eleanor, you can’t be thinking of fighting it yourself, maybe I should-.” Janet reaches out.

“No. Look at you, babe. No offense, you’re still rocking it, but you’re not at full strength. Besides,” She sets her jaw; “It’s gotta be me. If it happened to me then he’d do the same, I know it. We’re in this together, Michael and me…I can’t leave him inside that beast. I’ll save him…and then hold it over him for the rest of eternity we have together.” She rubs the stray, bitter tear from her cheek.

_“Red, dude? Seriously?”_

_Eleanor raises an eyebrow when Michael enters with his rather glaring bow-tie._

_“What’s wrong with red?” He almost looked truly offended._

_“Oh, nothing, you look great, Mr. Herman!” She laughs, sliding around the desk with a clipboard under her arm; “We better be having lunch at the playhouse or you change into a yellow one to match my sweater by the time I’m done talking to Brent. I don’t have any shirts to go with red.”_

_Michael pouts, already loosening the knot around his collar._

_“You have that red dress…” He gives a tiny smirk._

_Oh, that little…_

_Feeling a slight, cheeky rush, she turns when she’s half-way out the door; “Fine, you take me out to dinner this week, I can wear the dress so you can wear the tie, deal?”_

_It’s very important for the town to see just how co-ordinated their overlords are, after all._

_Michael looks a little taken back by her invitation; “Really?”_

_“Sure, bud. So long as you save all that red for our date. And that goes for all of it in those cheeks of yours too!”_

_She manages to catch him somehow blushing even harder and turning away, making it hard for Eleanor to resist skipping back over and squishing him in her arms for being so forking adorable. Instead she leaves him with one final, sweet-spirited laugh before closing the door._

Was that the last conversation they had?

Months of them spending time together, from their road trip in Nevada to their time together running this neighbourhood, crying on each others shoulders as one of their closest friends sacrificed his memory to help them, laughing and joking over junk food between working together, playful, stupid teasing developing into something…Something she wasn’t quite sure of yet.

Something she might now never get an opportunity to discover.

Fork, she’d let him wear any hideous bow-tie he wanted if it meant having one last chance to….

Another explosion jilts the ground at their feet as more buildings collapse.

Eleanor feels the heat rise inside her own gut as she looks out the window. She sees it. The thing that ate…that murdered her best friend, her partner, continuing to reduce the town to rubble, possibly hoping to leave it as nothing but a smoking crater of failure before it skitters off back to the Bad Place where it came. She imagines Michael, trapped in its belly, trying to claw his way out with every last scrap of strength he has…or sizzling in its stomach acid that probably burns as fast as the juice that drips off its outer flesh.

Her fingers grip the desk until her knuckles turn white. The anger helps. It blocks out all those awful images in her head. It blocks out the very idea of accepting that Michael is…gone, that he can’t come back. It almost blocks out her common sense.

She’s no monster slayer. Maybe it is a bad idea.

“On second thought, we could call the Judge. Ask for a reset. She can bring Michael back instantly, right?” Eleanor asks.

“Correct. But we have no way of contacting her while my powers are weakened, I’ve already attempted a connection.” Her friend points out, “I suspect the creature is transmitting some sort of magnetic field…though sadly it’s watered down enough that I can’t get tipsy from it….Just a little angry drunk, if that’s what I’m feelin’ right now.”

If that slight curve in her lips passes for anger, sure. Eleanor can be furious enough for the both of them. She wants nothing but to tear apart the whole forking Universe right now.

“Okay. Got it.” She takes a breath and stands straight, glaring at the chaos outside; “Seems to me like bringing down the monster solves all our problems. We slice it open, we get Michael out, we get your powers back, we call the Judge, unless we’re somehow able to salvage all this…Where is everyone? I only know Brent and Tahani are at her house.”

“John and Simone are escaping through the south road, Jason and Chidi were last seen near the fountain…I’m unable to get a trace on their location due to them being in close proximity to the Fire Squid. It keeps throwing my trace off.” Janet groans in annoyance.

Fork. Not only has it eaten Michael but it might soon take her ex-boyfriend and her best stoner bud as well. She doubts that the party in a flaming squid’s stomach will be as fun as Jason probably imagines it to be. Her fists clench at the thought of anymore of her friends being hurt.

No more.

“Are you able to summon objects?” Eleanor tries.

“Lemmie check, I’ve only tried when I was near the creature.” Janet holds out her arms and nods, creating another dull ‘bing’ sound, before an umbrella appears in her hands; “Ah. That was supposed to be a paraglider. Close enough?”

“How about you try this…” She takes the umbrella and puts it aside; “What I need right now is a weapon that can bring down a giant flaming squid…as painfully as possible.”

That thing is going to learn the most important lesson there is.

Don’t fork with Eleanor Shellstrop or the people – or demon- she loves most in the world.

*

This is a nightmare.

Not that Michael would ever know what one of those was, given the fact he’s never been able to sleep. But if he could ever imagine what his nightmares would be like, what horrifying scenario his guilt-ridden psyche could conjure up, this would be the first on the list, right above his paperclip collection being melted down and being commanded by Eric Clapton to never play guitar again, ever. There was also his other, more recent fear that he had Shawn to thank for, but this was practically in the same category, all tied together in repulsion for what he really was…and what he was capable of.

He tries not to let the screams surrounding him paralyse him with shame. They’re not real humans, he keeps reminding himself, shuffling his great form over the town, helpless to stop the damage his body spreads with the briefest contact. They’re Janet babies. They don’t feel pain. They’re not real, or ‘alive’ in any meaningful sense, they’re just an extension of his friend…and Derek, but mostly Janet. And Janet wouldn’t be afraid of him. Janet would know what he was and would help…

That was what he had believed until now, anyway.

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting when he opened the plain, brown package he and Janet discovered at the train station, no cart or engine in sight. Someone must have delivered it as quiet and sneakily as possible. He knows he should have waited for Eleanor…except the package had her name on the tag. Putting aside all the issues of privacy, this wasn’t like intercepting a love-letter from Chidi so he could fill it with itching powder (Attempt #320). The most likely sender, considering all the cloak and dagger of its arrival, was most likely from the Bad Place. If they meant for Eleanor to open it then clearly they intended her to be the target of whatever inside and no way was Michael going to allow that.

And so he opened it.

The explosion from the bomb inside, that Janet had sworn blind didn’t exist before he pulled the ribbon, came with a barrage of tiny knives that shredded his suit to ribbons in a second. He didn’t even have time to scream, only to blink, then find himself looking down on his town from several dozen feet. At first he’d hoped he’d just been launched up, summoning the ability to fly before he crashed back down, until he raised his hands in the air to find a pair of long tentacles wavering before him.

_Welcome back, old friends…Not that I’d ever wanted to see you again._

His essence sank with distress and he’d tried to crane his enormous neck to glance down, hoping to find Janet, hoping for her to fix this mess and put him back where he belonged before the others saw. But she was already gone. All that lay at the base of his body was a ruined train track and a crowd of screaming fake townspeople.

_“JANET!”_

He tried to shout from a mouth he no longer possessed, the gaping round maw now hidden underneath his form, incapable of human speech. All that left him was a shrill cry that cracked one of the nearby windows. The fake humans covered their hands over their ears as they scarpered from him.

Okay. Okay, Mikey, stay calm.

Best to look on the bright side. He’s not his full height. If he was, there would probably be nothing but a thousand mile wide crater beneath him and even if by some miracle his friends did survive, they would appear too microscopic for him to even see. For whatever twisted reason, the Bad Place wanted him to be a far more…manageable, the effects of the blast somehow dousing many of the flames around his being, and thus reducing his height down to a mere sixty feet, if that. It doesn’t take a genius to work it out; Shawn wants him to be able to see the look of disgust and horror on his friend’s faces, the betrayal of realising what their ‘demon daddy’ truly is.

Fine. Shawn gets to have that victory, but he won’t ruin this for good.

Just keep an eye out for the real humans. Stay very still and Janet will come back, she’ll fix this, she always does. She’s probably gone to get Eleanor and…Oh, fork, Eleanor. He shudders at the very thought of her seeing him like this, his anxiety causing one of his tentacles to flail out and bring down the bell tower without intending to. Crab! He wants to say sorry but can only continue screeching. He uses his extra eyes to scan around, trying to spot any of his friends or the test subjects. He spots Chidi and Simone running, hand in hand, towards the lake. Good! Get away, get safe! So long as no one is hurt, there’s a chance they can fix this, surely.

A cry nearby makes him turn as he sees John trapped in the crumbling nail salon, pounding on the upstairs window.

Damn it…

Not seeing anyone else around, willing to help, he tries to pick up a fallen streetlamp and smashes it against the glass, hoping John has the sense to stand back. The blogger squeals and leaps back in fright as Michael tries to clear out the glass with the stick, before offering it to him to try to get down from the second story. He has to move a little closer, ignoring for a moment how his other tentacles accidentally bash into a few more houses. It’s just bricks and mortar. It can be repaired, nearly instantly, just like he and Janet rebuilt this place the first time as if rebuilding his original neighbourhood.

 _“Take it, you idiot, get out!”_ He tries telling him.

John just cowers, or perhaps trying to avoid the splatter of acidic juice from Michael’s arm, waving his hands up at the sight of the monster getting ever closer to him, before taking a risk and leaping down into the arms of some passing Janet babies. Fine. At least he’s out.

If he can’t listen to him than Michael does his best attempt to be what the human suspects him to be.

He lets out another screech, fiercer this time, trying to be scary.

It sends John and his fake neighbours scurrying off as quick as they can after Chidi and Simone. Michael lets out a sigh of major relief.

Three out of four gone…And Brent should be at Tahani’s, as Eleanor said.

He can’t just wait here. It’s impossible to keep all his limbs under control, feeling them writhe about on all sides with the simplest thought, not having the time to get used to so many boneless arms again. He misses his legs, his beautifully long but still reasonably tall legs, complete with his socks. How is he ever going to find socks for these tentacles? Especially with all the teeth, even if Tahani would be so kind as to offer to make him some, it would be too difficult to keep them still to put them on.

Stop thinking like that, Michael. Stop thinking as if you won’t be an honorary human again.

Fire Squids can’t cry. They merely secret more juice from their pores, which is the last thing he should do.

He needs to get somewhere safe, somewhere far from here, where Janet can find him later and he’s not a danger.

The lake? No, Simone and Chidi are there, and there’s too much grass to set on fire as he gets nearer. He needs a larger body of water to hide in, almost infinite…The beach! Yes! Good old beach! What used to be his and Eleanor’s little study spot so long ago, away from the eyes of suspicious demons or irritating professors, can be his sanctuary again. He can hunker down there without hurting anyone except the artificial fish until his friends can find him.

He’ll have to leave a little more destruction in his wake as he clears a path out of the town, but its better than staying there in clear, plain sight and unable to stop himself burning everything down. He tries not to weep at the sight of his work becoming a charred, smoking ruin. It’s not important. Just think about the fun of putting it all back together, maybe even some improvements, like improving the coffee shops with pandas for waitresses…Who gave him that idea again?

“Oh, dip, was I throwing Molotovs in my sleep again?” the answer comes nearby.

Michael glances down to see Jason stood on one of the rooftops, Upper Management knows how he got up there, but he looks as if he just awoke from a nap. The Florida DJ is glancing around at the hellscape that’s now the town square, his monk robes barely singed.

Why hasn’t he run yet?!

 _“Jason, get down from there! Go to Tahani’s!”_ He screeches, causing his friend to look at him as if having just noticed there was a giant, fiery squid carving its way through.

“DOOOOPE! Where did you come from, homie?!”

There’s not a single flinch from the putrid smell or the growing flames. There’s barely a hint of fear in those gentle eyes. Even at Michael’s great height, it’s clear to see nothing but pure, innocent joy.

Oh…How could he expect any other reaction?

Michael almost laughs, able to summon a rumble that vibrates his surroundings, including the roof his friend is perched on, causing him to lose his balance, feet slipping on the tiles.

“Oh, shirt…BORTLES!” he cheers as he falls.

_“JASON!”_

He grabs the street-light again and holds it out, Jason having better reflexes and wits than John to know to grab it and hang on tight, allowing Michael to lower him onto the ground before retracting his tentacle, not wanting it to come any closer in fear of seeping anything onto his simple friend.

Jason continues to gawp up at him.

“Woah, thanks bud! Are you related to that blue dragon in the water? I seen him on Michael’s map. I better go find him, he can help you get back.” He talks, casually, while the building he had just been standing on caves in without anyone caring to look.

Michael tries to point his tentacles in the direction of Tahani’s mansion.

_“Just go there, buddy! Stay out of the way and be safe, I’ll be fi-.”_

His shrieks are cut off when something brutally sharp and ice cold pierces his body and sends him scuttering backwards, crashing into the library (sorry, Chidi).

Fork! Forking fork, what the fork was that?!

He feels one of his arms around until he finds something impaled in his flesh. He coils his tentacle around it and gives it a fierce pull, which somehow manages to hurt even worse than actually being shot. Even holding the damn thing is excruciating, the little piece of iron so cold to the touch, while its numbing effects spread throughout the entrance wound.

An arrow, tipped with a blue spear, radiating subzero energy. Ice magic.

Shirt.

He drops it, frightfully, watching it clatter beside a confused Jason’s. Was it not enough to blow up his skin suit and expose him like this, forcing him to destroy his own work of art by his presence alone, now someone shooting him with ice arrows?! What the fork was going on?!

“Hey!”

Oh.

That voice. That beautiful, blessed, pissed off voice.

He follows it to see two figures striding through the smoke and rubble, the shorter one striding with sheer determination ahead of the other, heading straight towards him.

Eleanor.

Oh, he was right! Janet did go to find her!

Any shame he has about his best friend seeing him in his true, hideous demon form quickly passes with the joy and overwhelming relief of seeing them both here, at last, to put things right. He thinks he’s crying again, a whimper escaping as a short, high-pitched cry, while more drops of juice leak from the pores around his eyes on behalf of tears. He pushes himself up from where he fell, ignoring the way the ice arrow has hardened and chilled the area he was shot, wanting to get as close as he can to the woman and not-a-woman who he trusts most in the Universe.

_“Guys, I’m so sorry! I’ll fix all of this mess, I’m just happy you’re here, help me-“_

Eleanor raises the crossbow Michael failed to spot at her side, pulling the trigger.

A second bolt is let loose, this one getting him in the right side, too deep for him to dig out without digging into the hole with one of his own arms. Shirt! He can feel it freezing his insides. Several of the flames on his right side begin to go out and he feels his form shrink a few feet, the tiny beings on the ground before him slightly easier to see, along with getting a clearer view at his friends expressions.

What…? Why?!

His multiple eyes look to Eleanor again in confusion. She’s scowling at him, her eyes shining with an animalistic rage. There isn’t a single shred of affection or even her usual annoyed disappointment towards him when he failed her in those eyes.

Only. Hatred.

Is she that angry with _him_ for all of this?! Janet must have told her what happened. She can’t possibly think that he would want for any of this chaos! And yet, all Janet does is stand beside her, hands clasped at her front in their usual position, clutching her thumb. Why is she letting Eleanor load another arrow into the bow?

“E-dawg, what are you doing?” Jason rushes to her side.

“Jason, go to Tahani’s mansion, I’m dealing with this.” Eleanor doesn’t look at him, pulling back the crank with pure focus on her goal, a true hunter.

Michael tries to raise one of his tentacles up in surrender.

_“Eleanor, please! It’s me!”_

She pulls the trigger, the arrow flying fast and stabbing his raised arm.

It’s almost impossible for her to miss, even as Michael attempts to turn and dodge her next attempt, accepting he has no way of stopping her, his back then pierced with her next shot. All he can do is scream in agony, no longer caring for any further mess as he tries, desperately, to escape the town and his once-friend-turned-assassin. Janet clearly has no intention of stopping her.

Did she even tell Eleanor what really happened? Does Eleanor know this is him?!

He wishes he had time to stop, to maybe try to leave a message on the ground, writing his name or hers or something, _anything_ , in the ash surrounding them. But, fork it, those ice arrows are hurting like a bench, their arctic temperature poisoning his essence. He feels the last of his bodily flames begin to flicker, some of them dying out as the cold quickly spreads, turning his flesh from orange to grey, hardening like dry rock in the desert. It slows him down, making his escape just that little more difficult…thanks, Eleanor. What’s more, he sees what remains of the rooftops get a little closer, his body getting smaller with each blow.

Why does she keep firing? Can’t she see that he has no intention of hurting her, or anyone? Fork it, she’s the last person in the Universe he would ever want to hurt!

He tries to spot the ocean on the horizon. If he can just make it out there…

Another shot in his side. He cries.

It doesn’t make sense, he tries to think rationally, doing what he can to blot out the pain of ice ripping through his form. In all of those reboots, Eleanor never attacked him with such a weapon, despite all the times she had Janet on her side. Knives, guns, a cricket bat once borrowed from Tahani. She could have easily asked Janet for a real weapon to take down a fire demon, like the one she has now. What the There changed?

He thinks the answer might be more frightening than his own friend hunting him down.

She only ever wanted to defeat him, during those reboots. Subdue. Win a three-hundred-year long game of wits and deception between them. She never really wanted to do him harm…She never wanted him to suffer.

That’s what’s changed.

*

“Where’s it going? Why isn’t it attacking us?” Eleanor asks as the creature heads off towards the beach.

“I think it was hoping I wouldn’t have enough of my powers to give you a suitable weapon.” Janet explains, at her shoulder; “You’re doing great, Eleanor, you’ve definitely wounded it. Just a couple more shots and it should be on the ground.”

“Yo, you guys need to stop! You’re hurting it!” Jason hovers close at her other side as Eleanor continues to follow in the monster’s steps…or slithers.

She doesn’t look at him; “Bud, I told you to get to Tahani’s. I got this.”

“Eleanor’s right, Jason, you should go check on the other humans.” Janet backs her up.

“But I don’t understand! What you got against Squid-Boi?”

Now she has to look at him; “You named the monster?!”

“’Course! He’s my friend, he helped me get off that roof! What’s he done to get you so mad, girl?”

Eleanor’s eyes widen and she waves her hand at the smouldering ruin of a street they’re currently standing in, ash falling like snow from above and dusting their clothes, flaming overheads still falling from crumbling frozen yoghurt shops.

“Look around! This is what your ‘friend’ has just done, man!” And that’s not even getting to the main reason, the real motivation that’s currently pulsing through Eleanor’s veins, simmering in the twitch of her fingers as she grips the crossbow.

Janet steps between them.

“Jason. This thing is not your friend. I was there when it arrived, it’s a demon from the Bad Place, come to ruin the experiment. It was probably only saving you to try to eat you.”

“No, it didn’t, it was trying to get me to cheese it!” Jason affirms, “If it wanted to eat me, it could have, but I’m still here so – respect!” He raises his fist, looking out at the stumbling beast ahead of them.

Eleanor shakes her head, not having time for Jason’s nonsense, not now.

He can keep up or not, she doesn’t care. She’s taking that thing down herself and then, once it’s nice and subdued on the ground, she’s going to have a nice little talk with it, even if it will be one sided. That’s fine. She doesn’t plan on doing much talking either.

She lets Janet refill the quiver slung over her shoulder with more ice arrows before walking onward.

“Look! It’s just trying to get away, it doesn’t wanna hurt anyone, how about we just leave it alone?” Jason tries to suggest.

“It’s probably trying to retreat so it can get its strength back and then return once the town is rebuilt.” Janet reasons.

“Then we go find Michael! He’s gotta know how to-.”

“Michael’s dead.”

The talkative DJ finally goes quiet at Eleanor’s blunt words. The three of them stop in their tracks.

“…Huh?”

“I said he’s dead. That…thing, your Squid-Boi, ate him! Janet told me so.” Eleanor seethes, barely able to contain the rage heating up her brain with the worst of headaches; “It killed Michael…Or at least, it will have, unless I’m able to gut it open and free him in time.”

“M-Michael’s really….?” It’s undeniably heart-breaking to hear how small Jason sounds.

Janet tenderly touches his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Jason…I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t see it for myself.”

Eleanor loads another bolt into her weapon; “Michael wouldn’t want us to mourn him…Actually, fork that, of course he would, he’d love the idea of us all getting weepy over him and saying how much we loved him, but he wouldn’t wanna be retired for that to happen. I’m going after that thing and I’m gonna fill it with as much magic ice until it’s shrivelled up like that naked jock I trapped in a freezer at a Wendy’s one time.”

That taught him for looking at his ex’s Instagram after having sex with Eleanor in the parking lot. This isn’t her first time getting revenge…but it’s definitely the most worthwhile. Even if she doesn’t manage to get Michael back (please don’t say that, please, no) then she’ll make sure that monster knows nothing but the worst pain for the rest of the time it’s here.

She looks back up at the fire squid, now turning a sickly shade of grey, its once moist flesh becoming more solid from the ice spreading from its multiple wounds. There’s very little fire left erupting from its pores. Even the smell is a little more tolerable, or maybe she’s too distracted by her hatred to let it put her off her mission.

Eleanor raises her bow again, letting loose another arrow, managing to get it between one of its giant sapphire eyeballs. The squelch is disturbingly satisfying to her ears.

It stills, teetering over under its own weight, before falling through the roof of the arcade.

Wow, it’s almost as if it was intending to twist the knife, in spite of Eleanor’s victory.

“You guys hang back here. I’ll deal with our unwelcomed guest.” She tells Jason and Janet before sprinting off towards the crashed in building, seeing the tentacles recoil as the creature continues to shrink down.

The news about Michael seems to hold Jason back from following her. Good.

She needs to do this alone.

_“Save all that red for our date.”_

A date they might never have. A date where he won’t get to see her in that dress again. A date where she won’t confess that she quite likes the red bow-tie with his black suit as it’s very…Satanic.

A date where she won’t get to see how sinfully attractive her demon is…

Or tell him as much.

Eleanor takes a breath, holding back the tears, biting down on her bottom lip as she stomps through the broken door of the arcade. The lights are broken, flickering constantly, one of the jukebox songs stuck on repeat.

_“But I see your true colo-  
True colors…Shining through…”_

Cradling the crossbow in her arms, she easily spots where her prey has collapsed.

The giant squid is laying across three lanes of the bowling alley, its body littered with Eleanor’s arrows protruding out of its flesh, a terrible wheezing sound filling the room with every one of its laboured breaths. She sees one of its eyes open as she steps nearer, immediately widening in fear before scuttling back, merely getting itself cornered, no longer able to push itself up to crawl away. It doesn’t seem to have any feeling left in most of its limp tentacles.

When it lets out a whimper, Eleanor wonders if she should feel sorry for it. Yeah, good luck with that.

“Not much of a fire squid now, are you, bro?” She taunts, stepping closer, “It all seems to be going out there. You’re just…a squid. A great, big, ugly, stinking squid. Even I wouldn’t wanna have a bite out of you…Though maybe I’ll slice off a piece to try. Hunting you down sure has made me hungry.”

It’s an empty threat, really. She’s never had less of an appetite in her life.

But it makes the creature tremble. That’s all she wants. She wants it to be as afraid as Michael probably was when it swallowed him whole. She wants it to feel alone. She wants pain. She will get it.

“You made a big mistake coming here, pal.” Eleanor tells it, quietly; “You hurt my friend. You…You took someone I care about…Someone I lo….” She tenses, holding herself back from crumbling under the emotion; “I’m gonna give you one chance. I don’t care if you can’t speak, I know you can understand me. If you’re able to give me back Michael, in whatever pieces of him are left, you better do it now. Otherwise…Well…”

She takes another arrow and reloads. She raises her weapon, looking down the sight in between two of its wide eyes.

“We can play a nice game of pin the arrow on the demon. It happens to be my favorite game, next to naked Twister.” She manages an almost sadistic grin.

It’s rather too easy to find a sick, twisted joy in tormenting her best friend’s killer.

The squid lets out another mewl, like a dying cat begging for one last scrap of food.

“Not quick enough.” She shoots, getting it in the top of its long neck, its scream like music to her ears as she watches it shrink down further.

It’s no bigger than a polar bear now, only far less cuddly.

“I know this can’t kill you. Janet said it can only slow you down and sap that fire of yours until there’s nothing left to keep you moving.” She muses aloud, admiring her new favorite toy in her hand; “You’re kinda like a Charmander, right? Take away all that fire and you’re nothing but a pathetic little amphibian. Or…whatever the term for squid is. Either way, you’ll be nothing. Just cold, bored and alone…forever. Sounds just what you deserve.”

She raises it at him again, smirking as the squid cowers farther back against the far wall. Eleanor removes her shoes, stepping onto the smooth lane on her bare feet, not wanting to slip during her most badash moment.

“I wonder, if I keep shooting, will you get small enough to put in my pocket? I could fling you into the air and try some moving target practice, doesn’t that sound neat?” She chuckles, advancing closer; “Or I could slice a chain through you and wear you around my neck…Let it be a message to Shawn, next time I see him, what I do to his disgusting minions that hurt my friends.”

Eleanor moves closer to the monster, watching as it covers its eyes with a couple of its longer arms.

“What is it? Finding it hard to be all big and scary now that I’ve taken you down a peg or two? That’s kinda my thing.” She mocks it, a flash of Michael’s defeated yet impressed grin from a previous life flashing in her mind; “You know, I’ve had a lot of demons piss me off since I died. But I’ve never hated one before today. Who are you, really? Vicky? Bambadjan? Gunner? Trevor, oh, please be Trevor! Actually, it doesn’t matter. I don’t need a name from you.”

She takes her crossbow and removes the bolt back out, placing her weapon on the floor and holding the arrow by its covered end, the coldness still enough to sting her a little.

Not as badly as it will do to the enemy before her.

“If you won’t give me my friend back, I’ll have to gut you open and look for him myself.” She steps forward, holding the bolt out in front, her predator eyes fixed on the beast looking up at her; “And if it’s too late? Oh well. I still get my fun.”

She prepares to stab the short spear into its midsection.

_For you, demon buddy. Always for you._

“Homie! Stop!”

A frantic Jason rushes in, slipping and skidding across the bowling lane in his monk sandals, before wedging his way between Eleanor and the squid, putting his arms out.

She pulls her hand back, almost inches away from having speared the wrong target.

“Jason, I told you to hang back, dude!” She frowns, “Ugh, you totally threw off my vengeance groove!”

“Good! I ain’t letting you do this, dawg! It’s not fair!”

“Fair?!” Eleanor gawps at what might be the stupidest thing he’s ever said; “That thing ate our friend! Michael, remember him?! The guy who saved our ashes, multiple times, who was willing to sacrifice himself for us?! You think it’s fair that some gross ex-work pal of his just forking ate him?!”

“Listen! Bud-babe, I know how you feel!” Jason reaching out to her; “One time, the crocodile in my grandma’s garden ate her arm clean off. I felt so bad for her, I wanted payback too, I wanted to make the croc into a handbag for her. But Nana Mendoz just looked at me after she bandaged her stump and said, ‘Jay, my boy. Don’t be mad at the croc. That’s just what they do, it ain’t personal, I shouldn’t have tried to stop it eating my mushrooms. You can’t let hate make you a worse monster than them, ‘cause they don’t know what hate is.’”.

Eleanor blinks; “Was any of that supposed to be relevant?”

“Look at it, man! It’s scared! Can’t you hear it?”

Eleanor stills, listening, hearing what merely sounded like cries of pain before, feeding her hunger for justice. They’re smaller now. Like high-pitched whimpers.

“So I should what, take pity on the thing that killed our friend?”

“M’just sayin’, it might not have meant to hurt Michael, but Shawn and his homies wanted it to look like that.” He reasons; “If it wanted to hurt us, why didn’t it go after Chidi and the other dudes? Why did it help me? Why hasn’t it tried to attack you?”

He pokes Eleanor’s forehead.

“C’mon, you’re meant to be the clever one, Team Queen.”

Leader. But, whatever. She takes a breath, the rational side of her brain beginning to wake up, while her anger keeps a steady grip until the two are battling for control.

“Janet said it went for Michael and that this was the only way to-.”

“Janet left.”

She stares at him; “What?”

“Janet called a train and left, shouting ‘good luck cleaning up the mess, deckwads!’ And then her outfit turned all black and way too sexy…Oh wait, that wasn’t Janet! It was her mean sister! That explains why she broke up with me!”

Eleanor’s head was spinning with this extra random burst of information. Janet was…Bad Janet? For how long?! Had she been the one to arrange all of this? Had she been the reason the weren’t getting any results with the humans, why so much seemed to go wrong, her advice always seeming as concise as usual and yet far from helpful?

She glances down at the crossbow on the floor and arrow in her hand.

 _“Just look down the sight to aim and squeeze the trigger. That’s it. You can do it._ ”

Eleanor drops it with a gasp.

_“You got it, Eleanor. Just keep shooting. Bring it down.”_

Her hands shake as she finally sees that tiny smirk that had been on Janet’s face, always out of the corner of her eye, as she’d marched towards the town and fired bolt after bolt at the squid.

“Fork…She was sabotaging us, all this time…That bench!” Eleanor curses. She looks past Jason to the demon on the floor, breathing weakly; “…She wanted me to hurt it. She kept egging me on, telling me it was the only thing that could bring Michael back…”

“She’s a liar, man, just like what she told me about the Jaguars losing Bortles. Can’t trust anything she said…Maybe she was lying about it eating Michael?”

Then where the fork is he?

She watches as Jason turns and kneels down beside the creature. He reaches a hand out and gently pets its hardened neck, shushing it sweetly.

“It’s okay, buddy. We won’t hurt you anymore. Forget about them Bad Place losers who ditched you. We always welcome cool demons on our team. We can call ourselves the Bobcats this time! Or Bobsquids, huh?” Jason almost sounds excited. He doesn’t seem to suffer any burns from touching the thing.

One of its eyes slowly blinks open, rounding on Jason at his side.

It can barely move, speared by the multiple arrows, nearly frozen in place by their magic. It looks worlds away from the towering, blazing Godzilla-with-tentacles that had exploded into the town less than an hour ago. Eleanor feels the rage within her simmer down as she takes in just how small the creature really is, despite still being as large as the two humans standing beside it. Why is it only now, with the wisest fake monk between them, she realises the Fire Squid never once tried to attack her? No matter how many arrows she fired…all it did was run…

Run away. Run away from the real monster.

“Fine…” Eleanor whispers, “…It wants to be on our side? Then it better start being honest. There must be some way for it to tell us what the fork this was all about…”

She trails off when she notices one of its tentacles, not yet hardened beyond motion by the arrows, rear itself up, moving past Jason’s arm.

It uses what little scalding juice it has left to burn the ground…weakly dragging its tip along.

Drawing…something?

Eleanor watches as the line it makes moves down, then curves before looping back to make out the shape of a…

Oh.

Oh, no, no.

She takes a step back, her mouth gaping, wishing she had her real Janet on hand to pass her a margarita. She’s never needed one so badly in her life.

“Can’t be…”

Eleanor unfolds the pair of glasses from her pocket. She holds them in front of her, looking at one of the large blue spheres on the creature at her feet through its lens.

Oh god. Oh no.

How could she have not seen…?

She glances again at the shape of the paperclip burned into the floor and then back up.

“Michael.”

The eye glances up at her.

She takes a step nearer.

“Michael….Is that you?” She asks, feeling all too dizzy.

The tentacle hovers upward, inches from her cheek. Her hand slowly raises up to meet it, her eyes beginning to water, brushing the tips of her fingers against where there's no juice.

Suddenly, for whatever inexplicable reason, something connects between them. That spark that seems to be shared between their souls, despite their difference in age and species. That almost twin-like bond she’s shared with nobody else before. The anger in her heart deflates, replaced by a vomit-inducing sense of guilt.

She stumbles backward, having to turn and retch into the nearest trash can.

“Woah, Michael! This is what you look like under the suit? It’s awesome!” At least Jason can be wowed by it all.

He didn’t just hunt down their friend for sport. He didn’t just fire arrow after arrow into his...

Eleanor moans as she splutters out some more bile. How could she? How could she not see…?

Well. How could she?! How was she supposed to have any idea?!

“You idiot!” Eleanor stands, staring down at the weary, wounded creature; “Why did you never tell me what you were?!”

“E-dawg…” Jason raises his palm.

She ignores him, tears spiling with newfound fury; “Damn it, Michael, we’re your friends! You’re supposed to trust us! If I’d known this is what you were, do you think I’d ever-?!”

The squid….Michael, lets out another whimper in the wake of her rage, trying to shuffle back again.

Jason stands and presses his palm to her chest. As if that’s going to work….

Fork, it does, after a couple of deep breaths.

“Dude. Lay off.” Jason tells her with rather startling firmness, that gentle tone still in his words. How does he manage that? “He didn’t wanna tell us. I’m sure he had his reasons, like when Donkey Doug didn’t wanna tell me about my long-lost Uncle, and when I found out he rooted for Green Bay, I get why he was better off not existing. Just…let him tell us when he’s ready, okay?”

But they’re supposed to be close. He’s read her file, he knows everything about her, is it too much to ask that she gets to be on equal footing with her best friend?

Another of Michael’s whimpers pricks at her ear.

Fork. Oh, god, she’s a selfish, stupid bench. Eleanor covers her face in her hands.

As usual, or what seemed way more usual than she thought could be possible, Jason was right.

Eleanor carefully moves closer, not wanting to startle her friend that she’d hurt enough today as it was, before collapsing to her knees at his side. She reaches out to place her hand, surprised by the smoothness of his skin, while finding herself worried at how cold he is. She has a sudden flashback to touching her father’s corpse at his wake. She very much doubts that this is how Fire Squids are supposed to feel.

“I think we need to keep him warm. Jason, can you maybe light some little fires or something?” She trusts her friend to get creative when it comes to using his lighter.

When Jason stands up and moves away to find some suitable fuel, Eleanor searches for Michael’s open eye to meet hers. Her fingers caress the skin around it, hearing the smallest, shrillest purr rumble out of him.

“Hey, buddy.” She whispers, tears running down her cheeks.

The rest of the words she wants to say get lost in her choked up throat. She dares to lean into him, shaken to the core with a combination of relief that her best friend was alive, uneaten, and the horror of having attacked and tortured him so mercilessly. And then to continue to put the blame on him, when he lay broken and wounded before her, utterly defeated.

Did she ever really get better? Is she as far from being a good person than she was at the start of it all?

Shawn had planned it all. He’d put Bad Janet there to be the little voice of hatred on her shoulder. He knew that Eleanor would always trust Janet, the one who literally knew everything, the one who had guided her to Chidi all those times to help her learn to be better. He’d plotted for Michael’s suit to be destroyed and for Eleanor to believe the creature had eaten him…Shawn had known she would want blood. Shawn wanted her to become a far worse demon than Michael had ever been when it came to torturing her.

And he’d almost succeeded. She would have gladly spent hours making Michael suffer at the point of her magic arrows until the hatred swallowed her whole.

She reaches her hand to one of the arrows dug into his flesh, pulling it out and wincing at the sound of his screech of pain.

"I know, I know it hurts, bud...But they're making it worse and they need to come out..." She tosses it aside and goes for the next one; "I'm gonna be as quick as I can, okay? Please...trust me."

She has no right to ask that. But he obeys, keeping still and shutting every one of his eyes.

Every extraction makes him cry and writhe beneath her, until he's finally free of them, along with anymore ice magic corrupting his essence, she hopes. Michael is left twitching and whimpering in the pain of their removal beneath her. If nothing else, at least he doesn't seem to bleed out from the wounds, if he has any blood. His body remains cool and dry, even the smell too faint to bother her. 

"It's okay, buddy...It's okay..." She smooths her hands over him, trying her best to stay strong, "It's gonna be okay..."

How can she promise that? This day has proven just how little the fork she knows. 

“I'm sorry, Michael...I can get you a blanket or…Something to help warm you up while Jason gets those fires going? Or a cup of antimatter, can you drink that now? Or maybe I should go…Maybe I should make sure Tahani’s taking care of-”

The tentacle circles around her back.

He wants her to stay…?

“You sure?” How could he want to be near after what she’s done?

Whatever the crazy reason, Michael tugs her closer. Eleanor sniffles and presses herself close again, giving the weirdest hug she thinks she’s ever been a part of. Another, more gentle and tired purr vibrates against her. If this is the best way to start to make up for what she’s done, she’ll stay here for as long as he needs.

_Forever, if needed…If wanted._

*

There had once been a time when he’d dreamed of what it felt like to be cold. A time when he’d tried to imagine the sound of snow crunching beneath him or to swim the ocean without it boiling away by his intense heat.

After today he thinks he’s had enough experience with ice for a millennia. 

It’s not so bad without the arrows digging into his body, their tips charged with arcane magic, freezing his insides and draining him of his natural temperature. The wounds still hurt like a bench but at least he can feel the awful cold leaving him, helped a lot by the little fires his friends have quickly crafted around him...and one of them being snuggled as close as she can get.

Eleanor hasn’t left his side, her head rested against his large spongy body, her eyes closed as if she could fall asleep against him.

She’s not tired though. Not physically.

His demon vision is just as perceptive as it is when he’s in his human suit. He can see the little boulders of green and blue energy crushing against her. Guilt. Guilt and...regret? Michael scarcely remembers seeing her weighed down by this much shame, even all those times she tried to truly atone for her crimes on Earth.

Feeling a little more energised, though still rather weak, he raises his tentacle to nudge her cheek. 

She opens her eyes and smiles, reaching out to put her fingers around the tip.

If there was one blessing to her vengeful assault, it was that it took away his foul juice and flames, enough to be close to her in his true form. He feels as though he should be pushing her away, in case his essence recharges enough that he starts to leak and grow and burn again...But he thinks he’ll know if that will happen. And hopefully Derek will have his suit ready by then.

For now, he keeps all of his eyes on Eleanor, wishing he could smile at her. He blinks, slowly, six times, giving a soft purr as she squeezes his tentacle.

“How’re you doin’, buddy?” she whispers when she realises Jason has left to go to the bathroom, her voice a little cracked from where she’s been quietly crying to herself.

_Please, don’t_ , he wants to say. _Don’t cry over me. You didn’t know, it was nothing personal..._

So she says. He tries to shove aside his fear that her reaction was always destined to be as it was when finding out what he is.

No. She’s here. As soon as she found out, he saw her entire spirit shift.

She’s as close as he has any right for her to be. She’s smiling at him like...he isn’t a giant, disgusting, wounded squid.

He moves another tentacle to brush against her face (careful of the teeth).

“Yeah...Sorry for getting all goopy on you. It’s been a rough day...Not that I have to tell you that.” She sighs, stroking him with her palm again.

Her touch feels so soft, so nice.

She wouldn’t touch him like that, with so much acceptance, if she didn’t mean it.

“I wish you had told us from the start what you were. I believe Jason, I’m sure you had reasons, but...If you think for a second we wouldn’t wanna be friends with you knowing you were this? This...pretty awesome kickash Cthulu? Then you must have a teeny tiny brain in that giant body of yours, dude.” She whispers, leaning against him again.

Oh...Kickash? He didn’t think he’d ever get to be called that. Violence really wasn’t his thing, which should have been the first sign he was no ordinary demon.

He moves his tentacle to curl around her, bringing her close, almost holding her to him as he’s not really able to lean into her - and he doesn’t want to roll into her in case he squashes her. He might be pretty far off his usual six thousand feet but he’s still a lot bigger than this rather tiny human.

“I’m kinda glad you can’t talk right now. Means you don’t get to try interrupting me when I tell you how awesome we think you are. Or how sorry I am. Or how much we care about you. You just gotta lie here and take it.” Eleanor sighs, “But I can’t wait to have you back in your human suit, Michael. I can’t imagine not hearing that voice of yours again.”

Another soft rumble against her. She must know that not being able to communicate, unable to have his friends hear his cry for help, was one of the most horrifying parts of what happened this evening. 

Then having her corner him here, shrunken and extinguished, ready to gut him like a fish...It had only been that little mention in her speech of her true motivations that helped him cling onto hope. She had all of this, taken him down with such brutality...because of how much she cared about him. That still felt surreal, which was saying a lot considering the fantasy environment he was raised in. He wants to explain it to her. He wants to be truly honest now.

_I need my voice to tell you not to feel bad. I need it to tell you how cool you looked with that crossbow._

_I need it to tell you...It’s okay, Eleanor._

As long as she says it is.

“I think I’ll even be glad to listen to one of your terrible songs again.” She jokes and he jostles her a little, disgruntled. Then he feels her smile against him, warming him through as much as the campfires, despite those rocks of regret still heavy on her form.

He strokes a soothing tip down her back, already trying to come up with some lyrics.

In all fairness, he is due some payback.

*

It takes a few hours for Derek to work out how to restore the town to its ‘factory settings’, putting the buildings back in their place and putting out all the fires. He’s nowhere near as quick as Janet, who no doubt could put it all back together with a mere jut of her chin. The Janet-babies help to clear the debris and offer what little of their powers they have collectively. And Tahani keeps the other humans safely sheltered in her mansion.

Meanwhile, Jason, Eleanor and Michael have remained bunkered down in the arcade, keeping Michael surrounded by the makeshift campfires to help warm him up again. Derek was able to share enough info to let them know demons can regenerate from physical wounds. A good few hours of rest along with the glow of the fires would help take the pain of those arrows away and melt the ice that had almost consumed his form.

After their little moment, she’d let Jason do most of the talking to their friend as he recovered, finding it hard to find the words to explain herself, even if Michael wasn’t able to talk back.

Of all the shirty things she’s done on Earth, none of it compares to how she acted today.

She’d always been trash. She was fine with that.

But today had been the first time in her life she’d felt true…darkness pollute her soul. She felt contaminated, almost like she’d sacrificed a part of herself, given into a beast that she hadn’t known lived deep within her, crouching in the shadows, ready to pounce. Ready to turn her into a worse demon than any she’d faced before.

After she’s done scrubbing her face raw with the soap and water in the arcade bathrooms, she exits out in time to find…

“Michael?”

He turns to her, back in his human suit. Back to the way she had always known him.

Tall, smartly dressed silver fox.

He gives her a smile, that irreplaceable smile, as if the past twenty-four hours hadn’t even happened.

“Good morning, Boss…Are you okay?”

The fact that that’s his first question to her, after everything she did to him today, almost brings her to tears right off the bat. She nods.

“Yeah…All the better for seeing you back to normal, bud.”

He doesn’t seem to take offense at that. If anything it brings a little more light to his eyes.

“What d’you think? Derek didn’t do too bad, stitching me up a new suit, huh?” He runs his hands over his hair; “I guess there was enough info of me in Janet’s database that he inherited for him to work with. I hope it doesn’t have any loose threads, it would suck if it it fell apart on me. Also, I think I’m a little bit shorter…or it might just be the shoes.”

She lets him babble on. Fork, it feels so good to hear his voice again, instead of those pained, animal noises ringing in her ears.

It helps her to reassure herself that she’s not just seeing things.

“Also, I think when he repaired my glasses, the prescription is wrong. I think I’m missing a dimension.” He fiddles with them before shrugging; “Oh well, any chinks, Janet should be able to fix once we get her back.”

Janet! Shirt, she’d barely had a moment to think, she’d been fretting over Michael and getting Derek to repair the town.

“Right…Do we know what happened there?” She wants to run up and throw her arms around him but…They need to think of more important things right now.

“My guess is, when Janet took Chris on the train a couple months back, that was when they did the switch before I came on. They took our Janet and left us with the fake.” Michael seethes a little, angrier than she’s seen him get in a long while; “Really twists my nips, those dinguses taking her under our nose…And then they obviously got bored being all sneaky with their Bad Janet, so they just decided to throw a bomb in my face and she watches as I…as we…”

He clenches his fist, giving Eleanor a heated look that cuts her deep before he has to look away from her, towards the doors leading outside. The destruction is almost cleared, but Eleanor knows how tough it is to erase the memories of what they walked through, as close to a real Hell as she’d ever truly experienced.

And she had fed into Shawn and Bad Janet’s plan, letting them move her like a puppet on strings.

“So…what now?” Eleanor asks.

Michael inhales.

“Go to Hell.”

She feels a punch to the gut. She had been bracing herself for this but, to finally hear the words aloud, it nearly snaps her in two.

She sniffs and nods; “Yeah…Fair enough.”

He looks at her.

She starts to walk towards the door, shoulders heavy with the weight of his rejection, understandable as it is. It doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“Where are you going?” He asks with a frown.

“Tahani’s. I should check if the humans are okay and reassure them it was just some glitch…a being let loose from some other dimension that came here for a visit but it went wrong….I’ll think of something. Don’t worry, bud.” She gives him a sad smile; “I’ll leave you alone.”

“Why do you think I want that?”

Now she’s as confused as he looks.

“You told me to go to hell?”

Michael laughs; “No, dummy! Me and Jason are going to Hell…to save Janet, remember?”

But…She…

Oh!

Ah...

“…Fork!” She covers her face, humiliated.

Michael laughs even louder; “You dingus!”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” She groans through her fingers.

“You dumb little cockroach. Now who’s red, huh?” He moves closer to her, enjoying the rare victory of embarrassing her clearly far too much.

Eleanor can’t help but chuckle as she holds her hands up.

“Okay, okay, I deserve that!” She grins at him, finding him standing near enough for her to touch, her fingers at her side itching to stoke his cheek; “…You’re really not mad at me?”

“Why would I be mad?”

She raises her finger and thumb in an ‘gun’ motion, her eyebrow raised quizzically.

“Oh, that! It’s not the first time you stabbed me.” He says, jovially.

Eleanor shakes her head; “That was different…You deserved it then!” She’ll freely shrug any guilt off that event; “This time I…” her eyes waver over him, her brain connecting the giant monster she had chased down before with the familiar figure before her; “…I was just being stupid. I was so mad and so…I can’t explain it, man, it’s like as soon as Bad Janet said you’d been eaten, my brain just fell apart. I wasn’t ready to grieve so instead I…I focused on trying to hurt what I thought had murdered you…I don’t even remember if I thought it might bring you back, I just…wanted to distract myself from how scary it was thinking you were…”

She raises a hand to touch his jacket, thumb smoothing over the soft fabric. His collar is loose, no bow-tie to complete his usual style, a rare show of skin below his nape that’s usually reserved for their more chilled out, private moments together.

“I was scared too.” He admits, quietly; “I was afraid of hurting the humans and ruining the experiment for good. I was afraid none of you would ever recognise me and I’d have to hide away in the sea until you could call the Judge and fix me.”

“And then I bet you were even more afraid of your badash friend marching your way with a crossbow?” She asks, daring to be a little coy.

“Oh, no. That was pretty cool! You even got that epic walking through the smoke cliché working for you!” He praised her; “But, yeah, once the arrows started coming, it did get a bit scary…and sore. Like, really good aim on that thing, but ouch.”

Eleanor sighs, reaching her hand up; “I’m sorry, dude…I’m so sorry.”

He steps back. She gasps, her heart sinking.

“You are mad at me?” She asks, her voice cracking. Mad or…worse. Scared?!

He shakes his head; “No, no, Eleanor, I just…I think I need some time, is all. It was…a rough day, to say the least, but I don’t blame you, okay? Not for any of it. You were right…I should have told you what I was…”

“Did you not trust us, bud?” She has to ask, “Did you really think we wouldn’t be okay knowing what you were underneath…?” she points to the suit.

He laughs, weakly; “You said it yourself. Ugly, stinking…Not even edible, which I know is a lot coming from you.”

“Oh, damn it, Michael.” She starts to cry again; “Listen to me! None of the things I said or did were to _you_ , okay? They were for the demon I thought had killed you. They were never meant towards you, I would never…I swear, if I could take it all back, if I could erase both our memories I would! Because if it means that we’ll never get to go back to how we were, if it means Shawn wins, then I’d rather have a forking lobotomy and lose the last twenty four hours if it meant having you back!”

Michael watches her intently, the emotion creasing on his face as she tears up before him. He almost reaches out to touch her face before pulling his hand back.

“It’s okay…Eleanor,” he tells her, softly; “He hasn’t won. He never will, I promise. I don’t care how many times you shot me. If anything, it’s kinda nice knowing the human at my side has a great shot when I need her to watch my back. Between you and our real Janet, who’s gonna mess with us, right?”

Between her falling tears, she manages a smile at his praise.

"Jason's the real hero, you know. God knows what I would've done to you if he hadn't turned up and made me see sense." Eleanor says, reminding herself to give her pal an extra long hug as thanks as well as to pass on to Janet before he goes to save her; "Sometimes I think he's the smartest one out of all of us."

"That's a terrifying thought." Michael says in a small voice, looking down at his shoes; "I am grateful he helped you...Helped us both..."

“But you’re not okay…” She can see that. She knows him well enough that he can't hide his feelings, no matter what other secrets he wants to keep.

“No, I’m not. But I will be.” He tells her, “It just…hurt. Not the arrows or the cold, though that was painful and I’m gonna use it to get a good few turns of emotional blackmail when I want something from you, just a heads up,” He jokes, “…But it was just the way you looked at me. It’s not your fault because you didn’t know and I am sorry. I didn’t wanna tell you because it’s a part of me I want to escape and…not telling any of you helped to believe I was never that thing, because I never thought I would have to take this off. You know that all I’ve ever wanted is to be human. It means everything to me that you all see me as that…Not as that…That’s not me. I don’t ever want that to be me again.”

Eleanor’s heart lurches at the pain in his eyes. Even if she can’t relate to wanting to become a different species than what she was, she knows how important it is for Michael to be as distant as he can from the demon he used to be.

“But…I guess I just always hoped that, if you did see me like that, you’d still know it was me. But you couldn’t…None of you could. And that…” He takes a deep breath; “It just felt awful to have the one you care about most in the Universe look right into your eyes and not…see you. And not as in they know longer remember you but instead all they feel is hate…”

Eleanor dares to bridge the gap between them. She places her hands on his face as she looks up at him. Her thumbs catch a couple of his tears.

“I could never hate you. Not in a million Bearimys.” She tells him, “I wouldn’t have been so determined to slaughter every single demon in the Bad Place after I thought you were dead, unless I really did…love you.”

They both go still. Michael’s lips part.

“I love you.” She tells him, clear as day, then again in case he didn’t hear; “I see you…and I love you. Tentacles and all.”

He shudders beneath her touch.

“Oh, Eleanor.”

She pulls his face down as she leans up on her tiptoes until her mouth meets his, her arms moving to form a tight loop around his neck. His hands clumsily move up her sides until finding their spots to rest on her back, holding her close. The kiss is needy, rushed and desperate, neither of them certain what is happening or where the lines will be drawn and crossed before they’re rubbed out entirely. They don't have the time right now to fully discover that. But at least they now have the chance, Eleanor reminds herself, exhaling in relief again.

They quickly give up whatever that was, Eleanor’s fists gripping his jacket as she buries her face in his chest, letting him rest his chin on her head as the settle for clinging onto each other as tight as possible, in an embrace that somehow feels more heated and wanting than any kiss they could dare to try at this moment. Eleanor trembles in his arms, leaving a trail of light kisses along his collar bone as his fingers travel up her back, pressing tightly at her ribs.

She feels a kiss pressed on her hair at some point, remaining content in his firm embrace for as long as they’re allowed to stay that way. After how close she came to losing him, in more ways than one, she wishes he never had to let go again, even though she knows he has to.

“Which one of us is gonna move away first?” She asks him after a few, sweet minutes.

Michael sighs, his hand stroking her hair; “I guess it should be me. I know how you hate to relinquish anything.”

“That’s just a fancy word for losing.” She quotes Monica with a smirk. She looks up at him again, closing her eyes as he kisses her forehead.

Then they break apart.

“Oh, by the way,” She retrieves a red silk tie from her pocket; “One of the Janet-babies found this at the train station.”

Michael smiles, reaching out for it.

She pulls her hand back; “No way.”

He tilts his head at her.

“Really, Eleanor? After everything I’ve been through, you’re still not gonna let me wear it?” He complains at her.

A playful grin widens on her lips.

“Oh, you can wear it. At our dinner date, remember? When I get to wear my dress so we can at least match?” She reminds him, stuffing the silk back in her pocket; “Now you definitely have to make sure you all come back here, safe and sound.”

He chuckles at her attempt to bribe him, as if he didn’t have enough incentive to bring Janet back home, or to spend as little time as he had to in that place again, away from all he cared about.

Eleanor can see how much he’s dreading going there. And how proud she is for him doing so anyway.

“And if we don’t make it back?” He asks with a touch of fear.

“Well then,” Eleanor smiles, nodding at the crossbow propped up against one of the bowling ball racks; “You better warn Shawn that I’ll be coming for him and that I’ve had more than enough practice hunting down demons, thanks to his little prank.” She steps forward again and strokes Michael’s cheek, leaning up to kiss the other; “I’ll be happy to show him what a real monster is capable of.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I totally stole that 'go to hell' moment from Doctor Who. It was too good a pun to ever pass up.


End file.
